Deconstruction

*
Deconstruction: A Parable

We stand head to head with the lion that eats itself,
starting with it's flowing maine and delicious tail,

while in the presence such awesome, fearsome hunger
the world asks — what is going on?

Pundits count hairs and toe nails, as if an anti-lion would reform
in a parallel dimension exactly like the first.

The sheer drama of deconstruction drives this story
whose first chapter is:

If you don't want to pay labor
you don't need public education:

in which we dumb down, forget to read Niccolo Machiavell
who said in 1500 the fastest way for a Prince to come to power

is to scare the population senseless and then lie,
the bigger the lie, the more likely people will believe it.

In this chapter we send our children to prison or to war instead of school.
Another chapter is:

Bad government is good for business in which Haliburton, for instance,
manufactures mass destruction which we pay them to fix —

only who can fix atrocity which drives itself
like a fractal?

Another chapter is: Weak governments can't control corporations.
Another: God is on our side in which the lion eats its heart, then brags.

And somewhere, today or five hundred years ago another
sort of creature aches and stretches for life —

More like a parade, or carnival than a giant capital event,
it swirls to mind. Millions of people hit the streets to begin

the essential work of our time which is to deconstruct
the lion that eats itself, to end these mindless cycles of retaliation

before they deconstruct the people of the earth,
and the shining planet on which we stand.

©Susan Bright, 9/11/04

Susan Bright is the author of nineteen books of poetry. She is the editor of Plain View Press which since 1975 has published one-hundred-and-fifty books. Her work as a poet, publisher, activist and educator has taken her all over the United States and abroad. Her most recent book, The Layers of Our Seeing, is a collection of poetry, photographs and essays about peace done in collaboration with photographer Alan Pogue and Middle Eastern journalist, Muna Hamzeh.

Deconstruction: An Example

Bush Declares: 'We Do Not Torture'
By Deb Reichman,
Associated Press Writer

PANAMA CITY

President Bush on Monday defended U.S. interrogation practices and called the treatment of terrorism suspects lawful. "We do not torture," Bush declared in response to reports of secret
prisons overseas.

Bush supported an effort spearheaded by Vice President Dick Cheney to block or modify a proposed Senate-passed ban on torture.

"We're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible, more possible, to do our job," Bush said. "There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again. And so, you bet we will aggressively pursue them. But we will do so under the law."

Cheney is seeking to persuade Congress to exempt the Central Intelligence from the proposed torture ban if one is passed by both chambers.

Bush was asked about reports that the CIA was separately maintaining secret prisons in eastern Europe and Asia to interrogate al-Qaida suspects — and demands by the International Red Cross for access to them.

Without confirming or denying the existence of such prisons, Bush said, "Our country is at war, and our government has the obligation to protect the American people.

Deconstruction: A definition

"Controversial mode of textual analysis that can reveal hidden ideological assumptions. Questions hierarchical thinking in which one term is privileged over another (eg culture versus nature, man versus woman). Draws on thought of French theorist Jacques Derrida, who elaborated on linguist Ferdinand de Saussure s vision of language as a system of differences."

And you thought these guys were simply lying.

Well,

They are.


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*"Deconstruction" courtesy of west end gallery